“No, I haven’t been to many classes lately. I suppose with the party, Grand-mère’s been too occupied to keep up with my schedule.” Lottie didn’t so much mind the break, figuring the classes would resume after the party.
Justine’s mother attacked the rip in the pants. “I would think that your grandmother has a number of details to attend to,” she said, snipping the thread loose and grabbing what appeared to be a petticoat from her basket. “You must be quite excited about Saturday night, yes?” There was the genetic tie she had with Isabelle, that way of making a question seem like an answer.
Lottie picked at imaginary lint on her new silk taffeta day dress, a dizzying tartan, and responded, “Of course.” When she looked up, she found Madame Dumas staring at her with her head tilted and her mouth skewed to one side.
“Now, dear, that did not sound like an enthusiastic answer for a young lady on the verge of her coming-out party,” she said. “When Isabelle had her debut—”
Then Justine shut the front door and called out, “I’m home!” and Rosalie responded with a howl.
* * * * *
“If you had arrived even two minutes later, I would have been facing the Dumas interrogation,” Lottie said.
“You don’t need to spare my feelings by attempting to be funny. You most certainly would have been,” said Justine.
The two sat on the balcony off Justine’s room, drinking lemonade and nibbling on brioche that Maisy, the cook, had brought them.
“I forgot how entertaining it could be to sit here,” mused Lottie as she gazed over the black wrought-iron railing down to St. Louis Street. Wagons groaning with produce and swaying carriages competed for passage on the narrow street…the occasional vendor singing, “Oyster man, oyster man, git your fresh oysters”…water being sold from barrels in the street for those without cisterns…. “Doesn’t the noise keep you awake at night?”
“No. In fact, I find it rather comforting. Sometimes quiet can be louder than noise.”
Lottie pulled her capelet tighter, though she doubted it would help the chill she felt inside. “Maybe quiet simply means having nothing to say.”
“Perhaps that would be true for someone else. Someone not sitting on my balcony pretending that her life is without complaint.” Justine tore off a piece of the brioche and chewed.
It made Lottie laugh inside to think that only Justine would use eating as a way to test whether Lottie would answer. “It seems pointless to discuss a situation over which I have no control. You already know my feelings about this. I have never tried to hide those from you.”
“Well, I suppose this is a beginning. But when are you going to share Gabriel’s involvement in this?”
Lottie allowed the laugh she harbored to reveal itself. “Involvement? Gabriel’s involvement? Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t be foolish. Your faces glow like the gaslamps on the street at night when you see one another.” Justine shook her head. “Though I do not understand why you allowed it to happen.”
I allowed it to happen? Maybe she’s right. But can you help who you fall in love with?
“Again, what is the point of talking? This”—Lottie swept her arm toward the street—“none of this will ever change.”
“Exactly. It won’t change. Neither the city nor the state will dismiss the law to accommodate you. So that means it’s up to you. You are the one who needs to change.”
“And how am I supposed to accomplish that? I can’t simply toss my feelings into the Mississippi River.” How much easier for Justine to have an opinion, having no one in her life she cared about as deeply as Lottie did for Gabriel.
“No, but you can drown them when you are faced with the impossibility…when the evidence is right there.”
The image of Gabriel’s hand on Nathalie’s back surfaced. “Simply because your eyes see something, that does not mean your heart does,” said Lottie, aware that her voice conveyed irritation. “It gives me cause to wonder, Justine, if you invited me to the opera knowing Gabriel would be there with Nathalie.”
Justine finished her lemonade. “No, but if I thought it would result in your abandoning this impossible notion of yours, I would have.”
* * * * *
The days gave themselves over to a soggy gray and the kind of stinging cold that kept children from complaining about wearing mittens, because they used them to warm their pink, chapped noses or revive their pale cheeks. Then there were the children who would have happily joined the grousing chorus had they gloves to complain about. Gabriel passed a number of mothers and their children, mostly the darker ones, who were probably headed to or from the French Market. While most house slaves wore better clothes than their plantation counterparts, especially since some owners felt their slaves’ mode of dress reflected their own status, the plantation children’s garb, if they had clothes at all, consisted of worn-thin homemade shirts, entirely too big or too small, and brogans.